Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Just the other day I received a note from a friend of mine, a pastor, who told me he no longer uses the label 'evangelical' to describe himself, even though he meets every element of its historical definition, 'because the term is now so stained as to ruin my ability to be what evangelicalism was supposed to be.'

"Another pastor who is a lifelong friend told me, 'Evangelical is no longer a word we can use.' The reason, he explained, is that it's become not a religious identification so much as a political one. A third person, who heads a Christian organization, told me the term evangelical 'is now a tribal rather than a creedal description.' [...]

"There are of course a great many honorable individuals in the Republican Party and the evangelical movement. Those who hold different views than I do lead exemplary lives. Yet I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years -- and the past few weeks -- have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures."

-- Peter Wehner, "Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican" 2017-12-09